


Technicolor Dreamworld

by Hikou



Category: Speed Racer (2008)
Genre: F/M, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:33:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikou/pseuds/Hikou
Summary: It was stupid, but I thought our socks had a lot in common; if he could pretend his socks made him un-crashable, I could pretend mine made me part of his technicolor dreamworld. All in all, though, it was pretty hard to feel stupid talking to a boy named 'Speed.' [CAT: Speed Racer [Movie-verse], Warning: Self-insert, Sock-inspired]





	1. Chapter 1

If life had the good grace to play things in reverse, it would've been painstakingly obvious how easily this could've happened. It should've been strikingly logical what the effect would be when someone as unstable and naive as I was skipped from the theatre to her car alone, and even though I smiled and waved at everyone so normally, we all knew goddamn well I was going to be racing home like a bat out of hell. 

And everyone returned quietly to their vehicle. 

Because they didn't want to become a casualty to my royal disconnect with reality; they didn't want to be victims of the rainbow socks. 

In a terribly embarrassing fashion, I'd dressed myself for the movie in too many mismatched colors and patterns to count, all loud, all bright, right down to my knee-high rainbow socks, _especially_ down to my knee-high rainbow socks, and it wasn't just because I particularly admired the reinforced soles, or they were high enough to keep my calves warm in the ever-icy theatre, but because after two hours of being bombarded with fiery explosions and Lite-Brites turned racetracks, they made me feel a little bit as if I could belong to that technicolor dreamworld.

Even though I didn't.

And I was bitter. 

And too focused on pretending, swinging out onto the express way without looking, cutting two people off getting into the far lane. I was still reigned far enough into reality to not start pushing radio dials in an attempt to double flip my car over the one beside mine, but not enough to be satisfied with the meager 87 the Honda was doing in front of me. I was sane enough not to really try and tap his front bumper on my way back around, send him spiraling out into the guard rail, but not enough to slow the car when the needle of the speedometer was shaking past 100, unable to read how fast we were hurtling anymore. 

I knew my shitty Buick wasn't the Mach 5, but that didn't mean I had to stop when those red and blue lights started flashing behind me, it only set the mood. 

An old professor of mine had called it the destruction complex, humanity's greatest defect, the will to swerve into oncoming traffic just because you could, the will to not stop just because you didn't have to. 

Most did not submit to it, but I was not subject to these rules; clearly, my socks were of a technicolor dreamworld, and that was where I belonged. 

And maybe I had lost it just a little. 

Because I swore I heard that safety bubble start to fizz out and diffuse when I stomped on the break too hard and spun the wheel too fast, although it was probably just the airbag deploying, and even though the windshield shattered, and I went bouncing out onto the street, I was fairly certain I wasn't flopping to safety as the mass of twisted metal that had once been my car rolled itself over a good six times before skidding to a sparked halt across the asphalt. 

The red and blue was still flashing across the pale skin of my hand, skewered in too many places by what had once been my windshield, and even streaked in red it contrasted so starkly with the unlit blacktop. 

Closer.

Closer.

_Closer._

__I never saw if the cop hit me or not. I was too busy wondering if my socks would still work, soaked in blood?


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't hit me, which was quite frankly, the most amazing piece of stunt driving I've ever had the misfortune of being counted a part of. I had to consider, laying there with the car idling over the upper half of my body, how many things could've gone wrong in that single instant he had decided to go over instead of around. If I moved my arm six inches to the left it'd probably be gone. If I had sat up, my spine would probably be cracked in at least four places. If I had so much as pulled my knee up I probably wouldn't be walking with it ever again. 

The door opened and slammed closed inches to my left, and I saw the shadow of booted leather feet jogging to the front of the car, to inspect the damage. 

And I had to imagine how wonderful it looked, like some skittle-rainbow perversion of the Wizard of Oz--a stretch of open black road paved through a sea of green, all painted under a sky a vibrant enough blue to match the ocean underneath it, and a car would sit on this highway, and I imagined it to be bright red, because this was the color fast cars ought to be, and from underneath this car two long legs would extend, stockinged in multicolored stripes right up to the knee. 

Like the Wicked Witch of the West. 

And then my legs would curl up in on themselves, and I would magic outside of the vehicle and demand this man give me back my Ruby Red Sportscar.

But as much as I curled my toes upward, this did not happen, and I could think of no good way to slide myself out from under the vehicle in that awful, too-short, ironically Dorothy-like dress I was wearing, and so I clawed my way upward on the undercarriage of the vehicle, away from the chalk-line of glass I'd still been shrouded in, until my hands hooked over the back bumper and I could pull myself up and out. 

Brushing the leftover shards out of the green checkers of my skirt, giving myself a good once over, it suddenly occurred to me that something was painfully wrong with this scene. I'd been sapped of blood and gore like some terrible, made-for-TV horror flick, but this small miracle did not garner my attention for too long because the man I had assumed was attached to the pair of leather boots was strikingly absent from this scene. 

Carefully, I sidestepped around the car, fingers tracing the curve over the wheel to the driver's side door. With a furtive glance left... and then right, I leaned over the open top of the car to see if the keys were still in the ignition. 

I was instantly overwhelmed. 

There were so many fucking _buttons._ It looked more like I imagined the dash of an aircraft than a car. Eventually, though, my eyes caught the glimmer of silver on what I quickly identified as the key. 

"Score." 

And I don't know why I leaned over and pulled them out, if I was just going to get in and stick them in anyway, but I did, and as if he had supersonic hearing only for the jingle of his keys, a head shot up from where he was crouching behind the hood, trying to figure out where I had gone, and the expression on his face was priceless because the shock and exasperation was shining through the tacky mask and shades. 

I opened my mouth to say, _I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too,_ but it occurred to me that this car was not Ruby Red, it was canary yellow, so I snapped my mouth back closed, and my teeth clicked audibly. My fingers immediately scrambled for the door handle, but it was not there, which cost my precious seconds--seconds in which long legs had time to stride around from the front of the car. 

I saw the indent in the top of the door too late, my fingers slid into the slot milliseconds before his hand brushed across my arm. The door clicked open in the same instant he pulled back, and I spun around, hand slipping out of the groove of the misplaced door handle, and a long streak of red appearing from door-handle down to the black **9** emblazoned on the side of the vehicle. A new hand, encased as finely in leather as the rest of this man's body, latched onto my wrist and squeezed, hoping I'd let the little jingle of silver in my hand go. 

I lasted fairly long, I think. 

But eventually it felt like the bones of my hand were going to uncap from the rest of the bones in my arm, and so the little scrap of metal I had fought so hard for went clattering to the ground. His foot quickly covered the metal before I had time to dive for it, but my hand was starting to hurt and the car was getting less and less interesting by the second. 

Because I had been afforded a PG rating in this bad horror movie, and that included paper-cuts, if not internal bleeding and blood-soaked socks. One of those left-over glass shards must've stowed away in my flesh when I'd crawled out the back way, so sharp and clean I'd never even felt it, and suddenly faced with the streaking red, pooling out of my palm, I was aware of that shooting pain every time I flexed my fingers. My other hand was useless in the precision operating required for removing the piece, still semi-numb from the death-grip it had been introduced to. Greenish-purple spots were already forming in long, finger marks around my wrist. 

So I put my palm to my mouth, pursed my lips together, and pulled it out with my teeth. 

The man took this moment of distraction to bend down and swipe up the keys as if I didn't notice. My leg swung back to kick him in the head--just once good, but he swayed backwards and up, effortlessly sliding out of harms way. 

"What's _wrong_ with you?" he demands, and I'm pretty sure it's just because a little girl in a green Dorothy dress with missing red slippers, or sportscars, or whatever, clearly cannot be a contracted hitman--although secretly I comfort myself that _I can dream--_ and shouldn't be acting as amiable as a small child in need of a diaper change. 

But I spit the glass out in a streak of red, stolen, all its own, and smile even though I know the cherry color has dotted my lips. "Absolutely nothing. I'm perfectly fine; how 'bout you?"

He stares at me for a long moment, as if there's quite a lively chicken dancing on my head, but through the dark glasses accompanying his mask I really can't tell what he's looking at, and give him a small shake, to be sure he hasn't fallen asleep standing up. 

"Do you always try to commit grand theft auto in broad daylight?" is the response, and I am remiss to find he hasn't even answered my question with another question, just rudely ignored it. 

"Usually," I quip, "I am not struck with a vehicle and then brutalized by the offender." 

I hold my bruised wrist up for show, and the best he can spit out is, "I didn't _strike_ you; I went right over." 

"You went half over," I argue.

The tight tone of his voice releases for a moment in a brief display of uncontrol. "You were _laying_ in the _street_!"

And I have to snort, because he is _not_ going to make me the bad guy. "Yeah, I just plopped down in a pile of glass for a nap on the highway. It's a new meditation technique I'm testing; you should really try it some time." 

He takes a moment to process the obvious, while I struggle to keep my bleeding hand away from my body, fairly certain this is the only set of clothing I have the fortune of owning at the moment, and doing my damnedest not to dirty it already. Noticing my plight, the man seemingly takes the notion to move through the walking disaster I _am_ one step at a time, moving to the trunk and waving me over to a first aid kit. 

The air seems to soften slightly as the gauze wraps underneath my thumb and over the back of my hand again, and again, and again. "So what's your name?" 

"Racer X," is his answer, and the his voice has squirreled itself back into that bad cowboy impersonation. 

I laugh out loud. "That's a ridiculous name; I'm Ashley." 

He bites out a, "Nice to meet you," and informs me that, "I think you should come back to the CIB with me; it sounds like you were a hit and run victim, among other things." 

I wave him off. "No, really, that's okay. If you can just give me one of those 'How's my driving? Call such and such number.' I think I'll be fine to talk to your boss over the phone." 

He does not look amused, which is amazing, through the mask. "Get in the car."

I try not to smirk, running the bump of gauze that is now my right hand over the passenger's side of the car, as I trek backwards to watch him round the other side. "Say X?" 

"What?" 

"Do you naturally talk like John Wayne, or is that just something you strive for?" 

The car growls into life without answer, and I laugh as the world passes me by.


	3. Chapter 3

Time had no power over me. 

It might've been seconds, minutes, hours, possibly days they'd left me to my own devices. I had no idea. I'd lost count of the rotations after three. 

All I really knew was that I'd built up such a momentum in my mindset of singularity that it was nearly fatal when X's hand finally yanked on the back of my chair. I'd been at it so long, my mind had turned to mush, leaving my legs and arms to function fifteen degrees to the left, and the seat beneath me had stopped so suddenly that my body continued into motion, with or without it, and with no chair to support me and no operating arms or legs to brace my fall, I toppled off of the swivel chair and onto the floor with a surprising clatter, that should not, and _could not,_ have been all my own. 

Judging by the smarting on my forehead I'd hit the desk I vaguely remembered before my feet had gently eased me into a quickening dance of circles, and when my hands fell behind me one eased across a streak of still-running grey that was probably a coffee mug. 

My elbows lasted five seconds, or three swivels of the world around me trying to out-sprint the focus of my eyes. 

God, but it was doing a marvelous job of it too. 

There was a streak of blue, and a streak of black, and a whole lot of greyish, brownish, light colored nonsense, like someone had thrown a bucket of water over an oil-painting. I barely even noticed when my head touched the floor. 

I was probably going to be sick. 

I didn't let it stop me from grinning ear to ear like some sort of maniac. 

The world faded vertically now, instead of horizontally, somehow more easily identifiable in this aspect, as the shooting lines of black that were X slowly melded into the picture of one extremely agitated and unimpressed man. I didn't bother to stand up, even though my eyes had stopped spinning, cheek preferring to remain pressed to the short-threaded, itchy carpet. 

"How old did you say you were again?" the streak of blue, who had steadily faded into a blob of blue, who now was just the unamazing sight of a bespectacled man in a blue suit, asked. 

My hands are busy trying to claw their way back up the over-priced leather chair he'd offered me to sit in by time my mouth opens to answer, but X beats me to it. 

"Twenty-two."

"--and a _half_ ," I mutter, indignantly. 

And though they both give me that terrible look, the one that says you're too old to be counting halves and spinning in swivel chairs until you're sick, I can still comfort myself with the fact that X is too old to be running around in a Spiderman jumpsuit and Mr. Detector should've known better than to accept the title of Inspector. Inwardly, I convince myself that they must appreciate my inspirational youthfulness; outwardly, I huff and swing my striped legs.

"Ashley," Inspector Detector spins the seat next to mine around, facing me with his elbows balanced on his knees, "this is very important." I scratch my head because I'm much too dignified to pick my nose just to spite him. "Do you know who hit you?" 

I wonder, quite briefly, why this is very important. I would find my lack of last name very important, or my mismatched state ID. Foremost, though, I would most likely find my rainbow socks at the very pinnacle of priority, bloodless and perfect as they were always meant to be, but perhaps these reasons were why it was very important to know who had struck me, if anyone had struck me at all. 

I can only smile very soothingly at the blue suit in front of me because privately, there's a storm of rage whipping through my chest, detaching my ribs from my sternum neatly and efficiently, one by one. This is the only way I know how to act; opposite. "Inspector," I say, plainly, because I know if I follow it up with 'Detector' I'll laugh myself into a coma, "I'm of perfectly adequate reasoning capability, you don't need to talk like I'm _actually_ a child." 

He frowns. 

I smile, surprised I've thought up four decent sounding words that hook up into quite a marvelous little phrase of vocabulary in such a short time. 

Racer X is bored. "This is a waste of time."

And has been bored. "We've got bigger problems right now." 

Probably, for a very long time. "We should be collecting intelligence on Togokahn's location." 

I don't think he likes me very much. I'm smiling so wide, the corners of my mouth have almost crossed, crumpling inwards and downwards until I've made a frown. 

Not quite, but almost.

But I can feel Mr. Buzzkill ruining my good time. He's here and now, and special and important, and he's made sacrifices he can't let fall through for my daydreams and rainbows. He is greater than my technicolor dreamworld, and he knows it. And quite suddenly, and quite starkly, I feel very ashamed for making this into a game, for not being cowed and quaking in this chair. I know I should be crying and begging for answers and help, telling them I don't know, confessing that I'd misplaced a patch of macabre before this agent had found me. 

I should not be spinning in swivel chairs or arguing discrepancies of half-years, I should not be giggling at important Inspector's names or pretending to prove myself with off the cuff turn of phrase. Mostly, though, I should not be wasting this man's valuable time. 

I should stop wasting their time.

I should stop being a waste of time. 

And when my gaze shamefully turns to my colorful toes, I can only think, _what an asshole,_ though I'm really not sure if I mean me or him. 

The Inspector is telling him something that I'm not listening to because his speech has manually blurred into streaks just like my vision had. He has been turned off of translate and turned into low tones of sound, punctuated by pauses between words that I refuse to identify. 

But when X opens his mouth I hear it, faintly, softly, despite his lack of real words, through the muffled feel of plugs in my ears. That tight tone, down to busy, poor cover for his real voice. I hear that fake stiffness. 

And the air rushes out of my lungs so fast, it doesn't make it to my nose, but moves too fast to cough out my mouth, and is lost in a nasally snort that erupts into a chuckle my hands don't move fast enough to smother out. "I'm sorry," I manage to bite out between my fingers. "I'm sorry... Inspector Detector." And it starts anew.

X throws his hands up in exasperation, turning away from the spectacle I've become, looping in slow circles with my hands pressed against my face, trying to keep the half-hysterics inside where they belong; "Whoa, cowboy," and, "hey, partner." 

"I'm going to find Togokahn," X tells us. 

I smile at him, as well as I can, still rotating slowly in my chair. "If I were Taejo Togokahn," I think out loud, "I would be on a bus." 

The Inspector is staring. 

"A large, red bus," I elaborate, even though I know it's not a bus. 

Or at least I think he is because I'm only facing him for a third of the chair's rotation. 

"And there would be mobsters on this bus, with bowler hats and wise-guy accents," I reason, "because that seems like the exciting sort of thing to have, doesn't it?" 

X has turned around now. I imagine slowly and dramatically, but again I cannot be sure with only a third of the footage. 

"That sounds like Cruncher Block," the Inspector breathes. X is dreading my rightness too much to nod. "Where is the truck?"

"The _bus,_ " I insist, "should probably be on a mountain, huh? So it can slide dangerously on the edge for dramatic effect." I know this is correct because I've just seen this movie. 

If I could see his face, I think my secret agent man would be about to cry, or scream, or throw a tantrum childish enough to rank him on my level, and this is information I fool myself into believing is comforting. 

"The only mountain around here is..."

"I'm on it," X barks before the Inspector has a chance to answer.

I smile, wider than before, because what's the point in having a technicolor dreamworld if you can't make a fool of yourself in it? 

"Does this mean I get to come too?"


	4. Chapter 4

There are bulletholes in the side paneling, and oddly enough I haven't noticed this until I exit the vehicle. My fingers have to slide across the hot metal before I understand what I've just survived, and that the buttons I'd been jamming down on the dash of that canary yellow death machine weren't connected to a game of _Galaga_ I couldn't see.

The driver's side door hasn't opened yet, I realize slowly.

It's just me sprinting to the broken form on the side of the highway--bloodied and awkward, frail and human, and it's not because I think he's dead or grievously injured, although that angle his arm's sitting at can't be healthy, or because I think I have to snag him before that big red semi-truck doubles back for him, but because I know what it feels like.

I know what it's like to lay on the street alone, to sit in a puddle of your own blood and wonder what'll happen next. I remember very hollowly the pain of waiting for the approach, anticipating death.

And I am not so cruel as to make Taejo Togokahn wonder if he's alive or dead for any longer than he has to.

Or maybe I am not so cruel as to make myself remember anything other than this vibrant world of adventure.

This is why my hands are trying to haul this useless body up by its shoulders by time X even opens his door. Men are heavier than I remember them to be, and it's a struggle to pull him backwards of groans and heavy breathing, painful hisses I pretend I can't hear.

"Are you all right?" slips out before I have time to ponder it.

And I have to admit I do feel fairly foolish when he snaps back with, "Do I _look_ all right?" in his terrible accent.

I want to frown and hang my head. I ought to keep my mouth shut, but for some reason the disappointment settles into a giddy feeling in the pit of my stomach and bubbles out of my throat into a ridiculous grin. My hand swipes at the trail of blood, dripping down his face, rushing to join its compatriots soaked into his ripped blue shirt. "Well, your mascara's running, but it's nothing to cry over."

X has to cough to pretend he didn't almost laugh at the Togokahn boy's expense, and his younger, hipper, richer counterpart glares at me for all he's worth.

I am disappointed to find I might have stumbled across someone who could like me even _less._

__There is no blur of speech between the two men. They know each other well enough to discern goals and reasons and logistics, and there's no reason to say these things out loud in front of the lost little girl tagging along.

All X really has to say is, "Let's go," and this beaten up and bloodied carcass that minutes before I was straining to reanimate was up and following orders. Booted feet crunch uncomfortably in the dirt, and I'm left behind to play catch up and hope they don't tell me to ride in the trunk, if I am to ride at all.

I am beginning to wish I hadn't asked to come.

Somehow I find myself trapped between the two, sitting on a seat that doesn't really exist, a knee planted firmly on either side of the center console, ignoring the stick shift popping up between them. I am trying to lean farther into Taejo than I probably should after having flown out the back hatch of a trailer because it just feels so damn awkward every time X has to reach between my legs to shift.

I am inspecting this boy's hand, imagining I can't feel the brush of a wrist against my knee as we whip into fifth gear; I can't understand why we need to be going so fast. I need to draw my attention away from this nervous phenomenon.

"I take it your not really a fish person anymore, huh?"

Dark eyes shoot at me as if I've grown a second head. My mouth spreads into a smile because I don't know what else to do because I shouldn't know there's a tank of hungry piranhas left over on that great red truck, and I shouldn't have held any particular interest in the hand that had narrowly escaped dinner.

He pulls away.

As much as he can, anyway, crushed in a two-seated car with an extra person.

My hands fold awkwardly across my chest, no room for them in my lap.

"This is only going to get worse," X says, branching off of my awkwardness, and it takes a moment to realize that he's not talking to me. My heartbeat slows to a still. "Next time it might be your sister in there; you can't fight them on your own."

But this boy doesn't care, and he tells X so, and if possible the masked man's voice gets even more controlled, even more false, and even more hilarious. "With the help of the CIB we can bring these crooks to justice."

And he's laughing, very cynically, and I am afraid to like the way it sounds because it's familiar and good. It reminds me of myself, and I need to get away from this. I need a new topic.

I throw my thumb over my shoulder, towards the driver's seat, "Don't he talk just like a bad superhero?"

My head almost bounces off the dash before I really understand what's happening. Taejo has said something wrong, staring incredulously while X growls him out.

Get out.

And the door clicks open, and for some reason I don't understand my striped legs slide out after him. X is too proud or maybe just too tired to say _not_ **you,** and I'm too dumb to take the lesser of two evils.

I've lost track of the words.

And that little streak of canary yellow is gone before I can blink again, and there's a flash of tan skin between the tear of a blue silk shirt as this new hero stalks off without me, uncaring and unobligated. Anxiety blooms in my bloodstream in full color, white and painful dripping from my brain into my stomach, making me utterly nauseous, terrified in a way I don't know how to mask as exciting.

But what sort of adventure is it if you already know what happens?

Taejo is already trotting along in the distance, and without the headlights of the yellow race-mobile the night around me is too dark to trace. It won't be too long before I lose him, and it's just a girl in silly stockings and a stupid dress on the side of a mountain top now, finally streaked in blood she doesn't belong to.

I have to run to catch up.

I have to excel in formality.

I have to revel in my own childishness.

"My name's Ashley; what's yours?"


	5. Chapter 5

If the rainbow socks hadn't been any indication, Taejo Togokahn knows something is amiss with me when he asks, "You have any spare change?" 

Because I do have some spare change, but when I reach into my pocket and present it to him, a whopping 79 cents complete with with a leftover piece of pocket lint and a ripped ticket stub that only says **11 ED RACER,** the look on his face is anything but pleased **.** I smile encouragingly when he stares at me under the street light, hand still outstretched, even though my mouth is so dry I feel like I might be up to knocking over a 7-11 just to get a drink of water, and my legs hurt so bad I can't even feel them any more, bones long since worn down to nothingness. 

I don't know why he's so upset with me, or what that stupid expression is for, but it's hard to remain cheery when he shouts, "What the fuck is that supposed to be?" 

I bite my lip and look away to the abandoned street, newspapers and left-behind grocery bags plastered to it like corpses of animals not worth slowing down for. The lamp post above us ticks away my anxious silence in erratic flickers of its faulty light bulb. I'm having a hard time trying to fool myself into believing it's not that he just loathes me as a person, but that he's just as tired and beat up as I am, equally as disheartened after trekking eight miles down a mountain to find a town deserted with the hour, no late night convenience stores and no friendly passerbies with lend-able cellphones. 

"79 cents," I answer woefully, eyes unmoving from the blackened windows across the street. I can see my pale shadow reflecting in them, a floof of dirtied ripped-up dress, a shadowed set of legs that do not reveal any colors, angled between a bus stop and a phone booth.

"I meant _real money!"_ he shouts, and I really do flinch. 

His fist makes contact with the lamp post and the bulb flickers for the last time, sizzling out in a pathetic zap of light. The shadows disappear. 

I frown because he isn't finished. "What the fuck kind of CIB agent are you? And who do you think you are following me around like I'm some sort of fucking criminal! Why don't _you_ call my father and teal him where am," he has more to say, but it's dissolved so far into his accent that I can no longer interpret it, and I afford myself a small chuckle at his expense even though I'd started crying as soon as I'd lost track of my reflection. 

This small humor only serves as a catalyst.

And the chuckle evolves into a fully formed sob, while I struggle to breathe and choke at the same time. I clamp a hand over my mouth, and another on top of that one, to try and muffle the breaths out, smother the hyperventilation before it starts, which is illogical but natural. 

Because it's more so he won't hear me than to actually solve this. 

I don't know what's wrong, but for some reason this technicolor dreamworld doesn't like me, and suddenly this just feels like a very horrible, very depressing idea, because if I don't belong here then I can't still belong at home. Eyes screwed shut so tight I see red, I've never been able to tell if it hit me or not. 

If I'm still laying in the street.

I'm not sure when Taejo stopped hollering, turned to stare at me absolutely appalled, that wide-eyed, shocked face most witnesses will adopt, accompanied with the absolutely masculine sense of horror at a crying girl. Maybe he's been nothing but mean to me the whole walk, and maybe he slaps my hand away every time I try to get the blood off his face, but I don't suppose that means he's intended for me to react like this. 

Awkwardly, he pats my shoulder, and I laugh so hard I'm sure I'll never breathe again, though the display can't look good through my tear streaked face. 

It makes me feel marginally better though, less like this technicolor dreamworld has rejected me. 

I don't remember falling down, but my knees are scraping uncomfortably against the concrete of the sidewalk by time I get the mind to speak again. "I'm not an agent." 

He doesn't respond, so I'm sure it doesn't make sense through the sniffles. 

"I'm not an agent, and X doesn't even like me, and the Inspector thinks I'm semi-retarded or something." My hands are pressing against my face so hard it's making my gums ache. "And I thought it'd be better to follow you because then I wouldn't know what would happen, and I still don't know if I got hit by the car because I was all bashed up and now I'm not." It's no surprise he doesn't know what to look for when I hold out my arm to show him the lack of glass and blood and gore. "And I don't know what I should do, and I don't have anything, not even 79 cents, then." 

I look down because I can't stand the sound of my own sorrow. Even I find it undeserving and unimpressive. 

I cough out laughing again when he pats my shoulder awkwardly. 

"The police ought to be by soon. My father should've notified them I was missing." He's moved up onto the bench of the bus stop, face shadowed, invisible in the darkness from this far away. I clamber up beside him to see what he's thinking, my subject still unchanged.

"I'm sorry, Taejo," I choke. 

"It's okay," he says, offering none of his own.

I don't ask for one.


	6. Chapter 6

It's not a police car that finds us, with loud engines and flashy lights, so I don't properly wake up until Taejo has me wedged halfway onto the leather seat. A faceless looking man in a black suit and tie is trying to gently pry away the foot I have hooked over the doorframe.

My heart gives an especially loud beat, the rush of blood paralyzing my body into stiffness for a millisecond that ought to last an eternity because this is the sort of car you disappear into.

It hummed too quietly, and I don't suppose there would've been more than the helpless crack of one of those newspapers, already long since dead, when it pulled up beside us. I can't imagine this nameless black suit--earpiece set, eyes still covered in sun glasses though it was clear the sun wouldn't be rising for another two hours at least--saying anything to rouse us save a gentle push. The window that separates us from the driver is closed and tinted, and instead of feeling protected, I feel slightly caged.

I am expecting cement shoes at any given moment.

But Taejo gives one good yank and I lose my grip and the door closes so quietly it doesn't even click. I open my mouth to shout.

Probably something incoherent and sleepy, not threatening in the least, embarrassing at best, so it's mostly for the best when he silences me with, "It's one of my cars; go back to sleep."

And I don't need much more invitation than that.

But the seat is too small to sleep in, large as it is, especially with his legs stretched out so wide, and even though I scrunch myself up as tight as I know how, my head still ends up in his lap, my hand hooked over his thigh.

He doesn't comment, so I close my eyes.

It takes a while for me to realize that we're moving, have been moving for how long, I don't know, but the vehicle is so steady the motion is nearly undetectable until it moves to stop. I can hear the buzz of the window coming down.

And though the words seem nonchalant, not as weighty as they should for this situation, I can still hear the edge of panic in this quiet voice, laden in severity when it says, "I'm surprised we found more than a body."

It occurs to me for the first time that Taejo Togokahn actually came very close to not making it tonight.

Because I have seen this movie, and Taejo Togokahn does not die.

But perhaps if I had slipped up once while playing invisible _Galaga_ on X's dashboard, or if he had miscalculated a single turn, that big red truck would've sped off into the night, and the next morning the press would be revealing _shocking photos, pregnant mothers and people with heart conditions please turn away,_ of legendary racer and heir of Togokahn Industries, face-down in a ditch, blood all sunk to the front of his body, skin tinged purple, hands probably missing.

I wonder if he can tell I'm faking, my heart is beating so fast at this new edge of realism; I wonder if he's dealing with the same sharp contrast of mortality, but his pulse remains steady, the swell and fall of his chest broken only enough to speak. "I'm sorry, father."

The man in the window says nothing, and even though I cannot see his face, I feel guilty. I feel terrible for having played this game with his only son's life. I want to apologize, but don't know how.

My eyes are still closed.

"I think she's in the same boat, father," he says again, although this time no question has been asked, and it takes me a moment to understand what he's talking about, to realize the unspoken query of the stare I could feel on my forehead. "She doesn't have anywhere to go."

There is another long moment of silence, in which I realize how uncomfortably my neck is craning, but am frozen to spot. I cannot move for fear of breaking this poor illusion I know they must be able to see through because Togokahn Sr. has been a father some odd 20-something years, and I'm sure he's seen this trick before.

I feel even more childish if possible.

And it's Taejo's leg I'm panting unevenly against, eyes shut too lightly, I'm sure he can count my erratic pulse.

I feel even more awkward if possible.

But the window is buzzing back closed, and the boy behind me lets out a breath neither of us realized he was holding. The implications of their conversation strike me very suddenly, falling into place like pieces on a puzzle when my head tilts up just enough to turn the other direction, angle my body towards the back of the leather seat.

_She doesn't have anywhere to go._

__It's hard not to smile, problems pretty much solved for me, energy long since sapped _pretending_ to sleep.

But when I look up, his thoughts have all fallen out of place, his puzzle shattered, as his head tilts backwards. I can only think his neck looks impossibly long as I offer my small consolation. "Thanks, Taejo."

His chin pops back down, eyes locking on to mine for only an instant before he snorts out whatever small whiff of humor he found in the statement, smirk lingering on his lips.

"Don't mention it," he tells me, as a heavy hand comes to rest on the back of my head.

"I won't," I mutter, as my eyes close with true intent this time, satisfied that this world seemed to offer a niche for me.


	7. Chapter 7

It felt a lot like waking into a hotel room--that initial retake of foreign surroundings, the subdued panic of not recognizing your own bed, but then it occurred to me that this was _better_ than my old bed--fluffier, cooler, fuller. 

The rap at the door sounded again, quicker and angrier. 

And tossing the covers back, still perfectly bi-sectioned into rows of quilt and cotton sheet, I've shoved off out of the bed before it's even occurred to me this is the sound that had roused me to begin with. Something feels wrong as my toes curl over the short-threaded carpet to the door. Something is terribly amiss. 

And it's not even that I know none of my friends have a bed as nice as that one. 

Or even that the hotel standard of cheap, gold-painted door bolts is missing. Still, it takes me a minute to figure out how to swing the thing open, and when I do, he's waiting there.

His outfit is nothing short of ridiculous. The white leather must've been custom-fitted to his body. The dragon skittering up and around his leg, wrapping snugly around his stomach, is breathing red leather flames onto his chest. I am extremely outclassed in my rumpled Dorothy dress and bare legs, and I can feel my hair sticking out of the side of my head like an awkward antennae. 

He's holding something in his hands, shiny and white, and suddenly it's shoved into mine. "Get dressed," he tells me, "and meet me downstairs."

The door has shut again before I have time to properly contemplate the words, seek their meaning, needlessly discard them and crawl back into bed, which is probably why I've still got my head buried under the pillows by time the butler, or guard, or man-maid--whatever they call this man in the black suit--stumbles his way into my room and rips the blankets off of me. 

I would've woken up myself if I'd had that extra minute of thought time. 

The helmet is sitting next to the bed where I've dropped it when the man rushes me towards the chest of drawers, and I am left surprisingly dissatisfied when I throw the doors to the armoire open. 

Because Taejo Togokahn is obviously a very rich little boy, and I think half of my mind is stuck in a flashback, watching Beauty and the Beast and waiting for the furniture to start speaking with me. I expect a rainbow of selection worthy to match my socks hidden behind the flawless cherry wood, but I am left with two piles of cloth, one vacantly white, the other hopelessly black. 

I scowl as the manservant instructs me again to get dressed as he hurries himself to the door. 

I almost call him such, but stop myself. 

Because there's no need to be so spiteful over a fairytale that doesn't even exist, and I can console myself that white matches everything. Even though, whoever this garment was made for, it clearly wasn't me, hem riding too high, sides cinching in a way I'm sure they're not meant to. 

But beggars are rarely choosers, even though I strive to lead the front on this civil action, and I am forced into the hallway with worn socks and his sister's old, incredibly frilly dress to meet Taejo Togokahn, with a helmet snuck under my arm. 

I wonder, silently, if she even knows I'm here, wearing her clothes. I wonder if someone didn't sneak in the middle of the night to thieve these things for me. I wonder if my ugly green clothing isn't a standard of preference. I fool myself into believing these things are true. 

I am pleased to find we match.

Not the boy and I, but the car, roughly unfinished in ugly grey metal, paint-stripped and shineless. We stick out like sore thumbs in this world of color and vivacity, but not for lack of our trying, because I hesitate on the top of the door, trying to slide in like a pro, before I topple inwards, and the machine stalls for half a second before roaring out in the biggest burst of pure power I've ever had the fortune of witnessing. 

We fit together well. 

And I fool myself into believing this is why Taejo handles poorly when he sets himself behind the wheel like a madman. His technique is renowned as reserved, but sitting beside him I'm struck with the notion that any second could be the last. 

I blame him for my mishaps. 

Because he has misshapen my reality. Taejo Togokahn's fearless driving, breaking my neck at impossible turns and stopping my heart with double back flips, has made me believe that I am capable of the same, and I am fool enough to believe that because this car and I are the same, we are friends. I think I will be able to toss this effortlessly where it hesitates for him. 

I am not a creature noted for my intelligence or grace.

So when he asks, "You wanna give it a go?" and I nod and slide into that seat with a big stupid grin, I really am being set up for failure, and it's all his fault. Because I tilt the visor on that helmet down even though I can't see through it, and I press down the clutch and move through each number on the transmission systematically, and I'm passing past 100, 150, 200, 250 like I don't understand numbers.

And I've never even driven stick before.

I've seen the racing movies, and the plan is perfect in my head as we approach this too-high obstacle wall, and I'm surprised how close it gets to working based on close-cut professional stunt scenes I've only half-witnessed through secondhand footage. Something's grinding underneath the workings of this metal monster because when I slam down on the break my arm doesn't know how to downshift fast enough to actually stop the car, and I find the steering on my drifted corner loses a lot more control than I'm prepared to sacrifice, and we're still not stopping.

We are going to hit this wall either way, so I hit the button any way.

And the jumpjacks thrust out through the undercarriage of the vehicle, but we're already too close and there's the sickening crunch of ten thousand soda cans as the side of the vehicle makes contact with the wall, angled too closely to make the flip up and over, probably not enough momentum to clear the brick anyway. 

And I wish the car was decimated. I wish very hard that we were bounced out in little red jawbreakers while the automobile erupted into a torrent of flames and hissing fumes. 

But the car just falls back to the ground, bouncing happily off of its wheels. 

I concede it has some nice shocks, and at least those will have survived my mishap. 

Taejo is not looking at me when he speaks, probably the most calmly I've ever heard him, and I cannot determine if this is good or bad. Mentally, I'm evaluating all the things he could be evaluating, every piece of equipment I've ever heard of that will probably need to be replaced. The transmission'll need a hell of a lot of work after that grinding, I'd probably fucked the jumpjacks too, not to mention all the body-work. 

My head bounces off the steering wheel. 

And alignment. I'd probably fucked that up too. 

"Have you ever driven a car before?" 

My laugh is pathetic and fleeting, probably _because_ it's so pathetic. Just two sets of wheezing snickers, long enough to propel my head to flop helpless off the back of the bucket seat, hands still white-knuckled around the wheel. "You mean I never told you about how I totaled my first car?" 

Taejo Togokahn laughs, and for the first time, I fear for my life.


	8. Chapter 8

I have found the Ruby Red Sportscar, but I don't know how to click it so that I can say _there's no place like home._

 __It's larger than I'd imagined it would be--much too big to be driven the way it is, so quickly and so recklessly, but I don't suppose it would be much of a racing car if you drove it like an old woman. It's cracked in spider-web patterns of black decal, shiny and new and clean. The dash is littered with too many buttons, but for some reason I don't think you can play _Galaga_ in this car, the way you can play it in X's. 

I am more than slightly enamored. 

And not just with the car. 

Because Taejo Togokahn has been clothing, and feeding, and housing, and generally carting me around town with him for the past week and a half, and I have to admit that if I'm not _enjoying_ it, I'm at least _comfortable._ Somewhere between point A, under the street lamp, and point B, pulling into his driveway, my awkwardness has lapsed, as well as my guilt. 

I have fooled myself into believing Taejo might actually be fond of me. 

And I'm not sure when this starting happening. It seems like every time I try to count backwards, I only get farther. 

Maybe this world opened up only yesterday at the practice track. I'm leaning on the edge of the railway, watching him spin and whip in circles like the steering wheel doesn't work, like he doesn't know what he's doing, like there is no control. When he screeches to a halt and jumps out like a kid off of a swingset, it might have been the anxious look on my face that set this spiraling.

Perhaps it happened only two days ago. It is surprising to find he knows how awkward I feel, saran-wrapped in this hideous white dress, deprived of my rainbow socks, and absent of color. I feel like they know, shoving me into garbs of black and white, they know I don't belong here and they're putting it on display. It doesn't help that I can't carry a conversation with any of these people; I know nothing that these big-wigs and elitists want me to say at his father's little gala event, and it's cute that he thinks if he takes my hand and spins me in circles in the dress only half as ridiculous as I am will make this better somehow. It is possible for this to have started because he grins like he's still twelve years old as I almost topple over in that pencil skirt.

Earlier still, it might've been four days, throwing money away on shops I didn't need to visit. It was true I couldn't parade around in a ripped and bloody Dorothy dress forever, and I couldn't keep living out of his sister's closet, but this was just excessive. I suppose Taejo Togokahn has not had a little sister spoil in some time, neither has he had a girl who will agree to hauling her shopping bags back to the garage, who will have her new things streaked in motor oil by the end of the day. 

A week to date, I'd met his sister; I might've forgotten I was fearing disapproval then. She might've pushed away my doubt with her light smiles and quiet words. 

Or eight days prior, I'd decimated that unfinished car, smashed it into the practice wall. I'd been so terrified that I would be homeless in half an instant because that hunk of metal had to have been worth more money than I'd even seen in my life. And somehow, he had responded by buying me dinner. 

It was even more plausible that this seed had been planted far earlier. In a phantom of a black car, seconds ahead of sleeping on benches in big cities like a pair of homeless orphans. The second he opened his mouth on my behalf. 

Or it could have been as simple as having _sprinted_ out of that canary yellow death machine. 

It was an aggravating sort of bliss, not knowing--not when it had started, when it would stop, or what it even was, our decidedly amicable relationship. It felt childish and nice; it was the sort of feeling I expected of something good enough to be labeled a dreamworld--pure and somehow exhilarating.

Deviously innocent.

And I am terrified of this being broken, so I step out of the Ruby Red Sportscar on the offensive when that police car is waiting in front of this small mansion, when I see a man in a blue suit and a shadow of leather, shaped into a body, waiting on the doorstep. 

But Taejo doesn't care, he strides towards the doorway with purpose, he assumes I am tailing behind him, but a black leather glove is wrapped around my elbow before I really know what's got me, and I cannot escape this familiarly crushing grip. 

The door is opened before I know what's happening, and a new hand has found it's way into mine, tugging me towards the safety of the house. Taejo does not hear what he has to say. He doesn't care about X's failed mission or what they want of him.

But it's the Inspector that has the first word, and they have not come for the file. They do not care about Royalton. They do not care about the mafia. "We need to talk," is what he tells Taejo, "about the girl."

My heart stops beating.


End file.
